I am watching 101w and noticing the last hour, my signal has been fading in and out. I've been able to get it back by bumping the dish a few counts east, then west. It's like the satellite is moving back and forth. Anyone else notice this?
101w Wobbling?
- Thread starter Captain Midnight
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SES has replacements being built now. Probably gonna be 2 years until they are launched.
Haven't noticed, or I don't think I have...... I've had to bump it west due to high winds I think. 101 is close to the top of the arc for me and is pretty stable (for me)
101w has been problematic for me for years. I gave up and this year played satellite musical chairs and put my 12' on it. Problem finally solved, but I wish they would junk the Sat too!
You can always call the satellite provider and ask if there are any problems with the spacecraft that would cause the symptoms you are seeing. I've called Intelsat in the past and it turned out there were problems with the satellite. Its best to call and say something like "this is Bob from XYZ cable TV in Podunk and we have been experiencing varying signal strength on several downlinks", etc.
Last time I checked, the satellites move in a figure of 8 pattern known as "the box". There might be enough movement to cause this to be a problem on "small" dishes. We had a lot of problems with Ku back in the 80's because of this - even with 6 meter dishes.
!0 foot unimesh perforated here and can promise the sat's have not moved. Looking into a forest 101 and 103 both are at 15+SNR and all with -21 to -24 Dbm.
Yes they go in a figure 8 pattern that gets larger and larger then about every 2 weeks they perform maneuvers to put it back in center of box. If fuel is getting low the pattern may get larger as the spacecraft owner tries to extend its life and conserve fuel. Small dishes up to a few meters are not a problem for a healthy satellite but larger dishes around 6-7 meters and up usually need to track. I had a 7m Ku dish at a low look angle that I locked down at center of box and it ran for years without tracking. The beacon levels varied about a half dB here and there worst case. I had larger dishes, 11 and 13m that had to constantly track otherwise they could drop a couple dB in level over 8hrs when the spacecraft is at its worst inclination before station keeping maneuvers. I think the half power beamwidth on the 13m at Ku was around .11 degrees.
Well I am happy to report that it has not been an issue since my first post. I imagine I was just watching at the right time.
